


Merry Christmas, Ebenezer; or: A Christmas Carol Redux

by Sparklespirit



Series: The Fandom Revival Tour [3]
Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Genre: "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings" because Marley, "now" is roughly 2018, Abuse of italics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Depressed Scrooge, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, He's dead but is he major?, I don't know I'm just the author, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, POV Second Person, Redemption, Scrooge has a bad past that isn't entirely or even mostly his fault, We're all about the hope here my friends, and Scrooge was born about late-70's, he just needs a hug okay, reconnecting, that seems weird but it's what I wrote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 08:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20543423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparklespirit/pseuds/Sparklespirit
Summary: It's been a long time since it was a Merry Christmas, but a new season brings hope along with memories.





	Merry Christmas, Ebenezer; or: A Christmas Carol Redux

**Author's Note:**

> Publishing a Christmas Carol fic in September?! I wrote this almost a year ago but I just got the AO3 account and gave it some editing and I don't want to wait until Christmas, ya know?
> 
> This is somewhat heavy, so check the tags! Also, this is POV Second Person, with "you" being Ebenezer Scrooge.

The snow falls softly outside as you stare into the ashes of the fire long dead. The rooms are cold, no more than you deserve. You dully look over the edge of your glass, remembering when there was a person toasting you back.

And suddenly, there is. Your old partner in business, the man dead for seven years tonight, sits across from you, legs crossed and the familiar spark in his eyes as if proposing a new venture. You’ve finally gone mad. Later than you suspected, really, and he shakes his head as you tell him so.

_ There is hope for you, Ebenezer, _ he says, perturbed that you believe yourself beyond saving. 

You shrug. All evidence suggests you are. 

He turns, swishing the ghostly liquid and solid glass in his misty hand. 

_ You will be haunted by three spirits, one each at one, two and three. They are your chance. _

_ What chance is that? I deserve more than three ghosts for who I have been, Jacob.  _

He shakes his head sorrowfully. 

_ You were always a good man, Ebenezer. You just have to let yourself know it. _

And he is gone, the chair as empty as it has always been, with only the glass leaving rings on the sideboard to show he ever was. 

You blink for a long moment, wishing it were true. You go to bed without changing or brushing your teeth. You can’t much say you care.

* * *

The grandfather clock strikes one and you jump up in blanket-clutching terror before you realize it wasn’t your alarm. 

A young woman sits on the end of your bed. Conventionally beautiful, as far as you can tell, she is young, but also old, in the way of being timeless. She glows, with a faint blue light that you instinctively know burns away any lies one would be foolish enough to tell her.

_ I am the Ghost of Christmas Past, and you need to walk with me. _

What is there to do? You rise, and walk you do over the carpet barely worn by the passage of years to the wide window. The gold-edged streets below pulse with the energy of the city, and she steps out over it. You take her hand and follow, for you aren’t afraid of anything, not anymore. 

The world swirls with people, solid and grounded and the ones floating above. Some are chained, weeping, and others merely look lost. You know that look.

She touches you again, and you see a Christmas of long ago.

_ The boy walks alone. Christmas holidays mean nothing to a disgraced child. He is not alone here, and tens more children have the run of the school, running races in the hallways and tying each other up in the garlands. But nevertheless, he is solitary.  _

_ The other boys walk in packs, laughing as they pass. But they all seem oddly fast, like people in an old movie. Ebenezer looks in longingly. But he has always walked alone, and it seems he always will, with only his demons for company. _

_ Merry Christmas, Ebenezer. _

You stagger back, remembering what you had always wished for. She stands, taking your arm again, and you see a flash of compassion. You contemplate spitting out angry words, telling her where to stick her pity. But you need it. No one else cares, do they?

_ The people move around him, other graduate students in need of a night off. The Christmas trees ring the darkened event room, even as groups of their mentors do, chatting and bragging. Scrooge moves through, fluid and graceful, avoiding waiters laden with trays and making small conversation. He never thought he’d have even colleagues, and is content. _

_ He leans back, jostles a passerby, and he trips. Just before the floor meets his head, a pair of arms does instead.  _

_ Oh... _ Hello.

_ They converse, sway and talk as the night moves on and the snow piles up. Later, when they leave, the last of all, there is a stolen kiss beneath the mistletoe and numbers exchanged. _

_ Merry Christmas, Ebenezer. _

That night was the beginning of the best. The best years…

_ The next Christmas, they sat together in their apartment, clinking their glasses together and laughing merrily. They unwrap the gifts and swap watches, promising forever in between kisses. _

_ The Christmas after they go to the countryside, playing tennis and walking arm in arm through the snow. The only time they kiss is against a snow-covered tree, out of everyone’s sight but their own. But it’s enough. _

You shudder as you know what is about to come. The end of it all. Why were you complacent? You knew there was no way you could have this forever, but it wasn’t long enough. Never long enough.

_ The next Christmas, an older Scrooge sits tearstained, alone. He stares into his glass, replaying the same conversation over and over. _

_ He came home later than normal, working for the elusive promotion. His beloved isn’t waiting by the door.  _

_ He sees him, and hands him a glass of water, bending in for a quick kiss, as usual. The other man bends away and he begins to worry.  _

_ “What’s wrong?” _

_ “Why do you hide us?” _

_ Scrooge chokes, spluttering, “What?” _

_ “I said it. Why are you ashamed?” _

_ “I’m not.” He isn’t. It’s just easier when no one understands except the man across from you. _

_ “But you are. You have had to choose between your job and me. You didn’t choose me.” _

_ “Because…” Because he wanted him to be able to do what he wanted, Scrooge thinks. He didn’t want him to have to worry, because he shouldn't have to. Scrooge does anyway. Why not spare him? _

_ “Because you were greedy. Because you care more about  _ _ money _ _ than me.” The other spits the words, meaning them to hurt. _

_ Scrooge crumples, he can’t speak. The standing man unclasps the watch he always wears from around his wrist and hands it back to Scrooge.  _

_ The other stands in the doorway, his silhouette falling over the seated man, hiding Scrooge’s tears from his view.  _

_ “I did love you, Ebenezer, and release you with a full heart for the love of the man you once were. _

_ “Be happy in the life you have chosen,” he says. _

_ Scrooge was. He chose Richard, but his beloved ran away, like everyone else.  _

_ Scrooge can’t find him after that. He’s gone. _

_ He shakes and sobs into the cushions. He drowns his sorrows in liquid gold as the snow falls outside. _

_ Merry Christmas, Ebenezer. _

The tears in your eyes mirror the ones you had then. The spirit holds you as you shake and howl, wondering why, what you could have done. She pushes you on.

_ That Christmas, he got a card for the first time in a long time. It was from the nephew he never knew, from the family that had cast him out. _

_ The nephew reached out, saying that he didn’t care why his “Uncle Ebenezer” had left, but he was always welcome. _

_ The man laughed bitterly. He hadn’t been welcome anywhere for years, and he wasn’t the one that kept leaving.  _

_ He threw the card away and buried himself in work to forget the smiling faces who only claimed to welcome him. _

She catches your eye, and you see her sadness mirroring yours.  _ One more Christmas. _

_ The party moves on, a genteel gathering for the young workers. The man stands near the edge of the room, and is granted a memory of when he was in the middle. He has no one to mentor now. He is disagreeable and wants to be left alone. If anyone stays, that only makes it more painful when they leave. _

_ He sees two men laughing, arms slung around each other as they chat animatedly with the other people there.  _

_ They kiss under the mistletoe to the cheers and applause of the whole gathering, the taller dipping the other. _

_ The only people not smiling were attached to the wall, most scowling, Scrooge instead seeing two different men in their places.  _

_ Merry Christmas, Ebenezer. _

The spirit releases you, letting you fall onto you own bed.  _ Merry Christmas, Ebenezer. _

* * *

The second spirit is larger, and happier, and glows with a cheery light. He is a striking man, you say, and he laughs and beckons you behind him.

You follow him, through the church you only ever set foot in for weddings and funerals, and precious little even of those.

The people sing, they share, and you find yourself smiling along with them.

The shops outside bustle with life, and you see the people buying and selling with the money you have no use for anymore.

You see your assistant, Bob, surrounded by his children and their threadbare but joyful state. His salary must be adequate for more than that, you think, but the spirit points toward his daughter, and you  _ know _ .

She needs help. He tries, her mother tries, but medication is expensive and pocket money for razors is cheap.

_ Will she live? _ You ask. 

_ You did. Does she want to, is, perhaps, the better question, _ the spirit replies. 

You know what she needs, and you weep for humanity. 

The spirit leads you to your nephew’s house, where they laugh and play and converse. 

_ Didn’t you say you had an uncle you never knew? _ His wife asks.

_ “Have”, actually. I sent him a card. No idea why he never responded. He’s just absent, and I can’t fathom why. Maybe he wanted to make his fortune and doesn’t care about his family anymore? Anyway, whatever it is, I’ll keep sending him cards as long as I can. He deserves a chance, after all. _

You aren’t sure you do, but you’ll take it.

* * *

The last spirit dresses in a robe like death and seems to suck the light from the room. You think that he’s come for you, and wonder that you’ve been given a chance only for it to be taken away. Murphy’s law truly is an absolute. 

He shakes his head as you kneel before him and points you onward. 

Through the misty streets you walk, arm in arm. 

You walk past the windows you know, and you see an empty office, don’t hear your name.

You pass an art house, with some of your collected paintings, the only things that ever gave you even a little happiness after  _ he _ left, being sold off. 

You pass a vacant house, with the Cratchits long gone. 

When you walk together to the graveyard, you turn. 

_ No, don’t do this to me. Don’t show me a barren plot, without flowers, that of a man no one ever remembers. Don’t show me a dead daughter, don’t show me people dancing over the grave of the one they remember only as uncaring. Don’t you hurt me too, spirit. _

The spirit shakes his head, once, twice, slowly and deliberately. You brace yourself and walk in.

You see a large funeral, with mourners and flowers trailing over the whole graveyard. Bob Cratchit stands to give the eulogy and he looks years older than when you saw him last. Your heart stops for a second before you see his daughter, looking somehow brighter than before, next to all his children. You frown, puzzled, and the ghost motions you to listen. 

_ He was a great man, _ Cratchit begins.

_ We didn’t think so, not at first. But he surprised us. He helped my daughter, he forgave your loans, he volunteered at your soup kitchen, he always donated to the poor. _

_ He found his nephew, reconnected with his surviving family, was the most thoughtful boss and colleague that any of us ever had.  _

_ All I can really say, _ he said through a choked throat, _ is that Ebenezer Scrooge was a good man and shall be missed. _

You recoil, unable to believe what you heard. The ghost nods next to you, as if to reassure you that this really is possible. You remember the emptiness of the office, with everyone here. You remember the tags on the paintings that said  _ “all proceeds to charity”. _ You see Tina Cratchit, even in a sad place, seem to glow. You see your nephew and his family at the back of the crowd, weeping bitterly into a bouquet of lilies.

You look at the gravestone you lean on. Richard’s name is emblazoned the front, and another is incised next to it. He himself is gone, but the other name still lives. The other stands to give a speech after Cratchit, saying,  _ I would not have thought it, but he was the best of friends. _

You see that life isn’t over yet, even in your own death. 

* * *

The next morning, you wake with a sense of purpose. You call your nephew, ask to come out. He says yes, surprised, but happy.

You bring toys for the children you saw, and they love you immediately. You play and you talk and you feel like you have a family. That’s new.

The next day, you go into your office, still crammed full of busy people. You quietly work, as always, transferring money and using your own to pay the debts of those who cannot, those who up until now you didn’t see, so wrapped up in your own misery as you were. 

You finish, finally adding several bonuses onto Cratchit’s salary. He does need it, but it’s Tina and the desperate sadness in her eyes so like that of your own younger self that you do this for. No need to tell him. He’ll find the extra and wonder, and you’ll tell him if he asks. But you don’t need to gloat. 

You skip down the slippery streets, careful to stay upright. You do not want to hold your funeral just yet. 

You look up  _ his _ name in the telephone book, call him and ask for his friendship. You agree to meet, to see who makes his world new now. He was always a good friend, and you wish to be the person he once thought you were, before all the unpleasantness.

When you sit down at your home, with a hastily bought tree and a wreath over your door, the chair doesn’t remind you of  _ him _ anymore. It reminds you of the spirits, and Marley, poor Marley who is as lost as you were. Before you go to bed, you leave a glass out for him, and toast next to the crackling fire.

_ Merry Christmas, Jacob. _

You hear a clink of a glass and a whisper behind you.

_ Merry Christmas, Ebenezer.  _

And it is. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was written almost entirely in one sitting, an hour-and-a-half spree which I have never replicated and possibly never shall, though I certainly hope to
> 
> Kudos, and I shall ask the Muses to come upon you as well
> 
> If you comment we're friends now I'm sorry I don't make the rules I just enforce them


End file.
